This fall, I had the privilege of working as a Social Impact Fellow for The Little Guy Foundation. The Little Guy Foundation is a nonprofit that focuses on amplifying the voices of “the little guys” around the world and in the Atlanta community through art and storytelling. Specifically, they work with other nonprofit organizations such as Ame Viva in Brazil and the YMCA in Atlanta to run various arts workshops. Some of these events in the past have included poetry workshops, dancing lessons, and open mics. My role as a Social Impact Fellow for The Little Guy Foundation was very diverse, which is part of why I enjoyed it so much. Some weeks I focused on the marketing side of the organization, which included creating graphics for social media or editing video footage of the work The Little Guy Foundation is doing across the globe. Other weeks, I looked into Atlanta organizations that align with the mission of The Little Guy Foundation, and ways in which we could partner with them to increase our impact in the Atlanta community.
While a large portion of my role was marketing focused, I also spent a lot of time researching grant writing and potential grants The Little Guy Foundation could apply for. Through this process, I learned a lot about the key characteristics that grantors look for in grant applications and how to tailor an application to match with a grant organization’s values. As a relatively new nonprofit, The Little Guy Foundation doesn’t have much experience with grant writing. I was able to step up and support their funding efforts by providing them with some of the key information that most grant applications ask for. In the future, I hope the research I did will help expedite the grant writing process for them since they will know the basic information required to apply.
One of the main aspects of my time working for The Little Guy Foundation that I am extremely grateful for is the amount of creative freedom I had. While I was given guidelines for the projects I was working on, I also had a large degree of creative license, which I think is what made my experience so enjoyable. For example, one of my assignments was to table for The Little Guy Foundation on Tech Green. I was provided with the flyers to hand out and the basic tabling information that I needed to get across to whoever walked up, but apart from that I was encouraged to get creative. I ended up purchasing a sticker printer that allowed people who came up to the table to create their own “little guy” sticker, which was a really fun experience. I also had a lot of creative freedom in the way I designed social media graphics and videos. Initially, this autonomy seemed slightly intimidating, because I don’t see myself as a very artistically gifted person. However, the level of freedom I had proved to be a challenge that I welcomed gladly, and I ended up learning a lot about graphic design. Some of my initial posts were not as successful engagement-wise as I had hoped, but I was able to learn from my failures and adapt to create content that people did like.
My time at The Little Guy Foundation had a profound impact on my view of the organization’s mission and broader social issues. I was able to understand on a deeper level how important creative expression is, especially for social groups that are often overlooked. While I wasn’t on the team working in-person in Latin America, I edited a lot of content from the work the team was doing across the globe. Through this process, I gained a deeper appreciation
for the many cultural differences between North America and Latin America, but also for the fact that we are all connected through our shared humanity. The work that The Little Guy Foundation is doing is so important for this very reason: appreciating cultural differences while finding the beauty in our shared humanity allows us to have greater empathy for one another.
In the future, I think this experience will influence my goals and career path by encouraging me to always be empathetic towards whoever I am working with. I may not be able to fully understand, but I should always be willing to listen and create an environment where people feel comfortable expressing themselves. Overall, I am so grateful for my time working as a Social Impact Fellow for The Little Guy Foundation, and I can’t wait to see the incredible things they will continue to do in the future.
This reflection is part of Georgia Tech’s Social Impact Fellows program, offered through the Institute for Leadership and Social Impact (ILSI). This program connects students with nonprofit and community organizations in Atlanta for semester-long, hands-on project experiences designed to foster co-learning, social responsibility, and personal growth. To learn more about program details and application information, please visit our program webpage.